António Guterres calls for a ‘massive’ increase in finance and support for the countries most vulnerable to rising sea levels
Pacific island nations are in “grave danger” from rising sea levels and the world must “answer the SOS before it is too late”, the UN chief has warned during a visit to Tonga.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, urged the world to “look to the Pacific and listen to the science” as he released two new reports on the sidelines of the Pacific Islands Forum, the region’s most important annual political gathering.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
08/26/2024 - 18:01
08/26/2024 - 16:41
One report says 150-200 people missing after heavy rain led to Arbaat dam giving way in area already hit by civil war
Surging waters have burst through a dam in eastern Sudan, wiping out at least 20 villages and leaving at least 30 people dead but probably many more, the UN has said, devastating a region already reeling from months of civil war.
Torrential rains caused floods that on Sunday overwhelmed the Arbaat dam, which is 25 miles (40km) north of Port Sudan, the de facto national capital and base for the government, diplomats, aid agencies and hundreds of thousands of displaced people.
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08/26/2024 - 12:12
Two recent amphibian-focused studies shed light on the ecological importance of red-backed salamanders, while confirming that proactive measures would prevent costly impacts from a wildlife disease spreading across Europe that has not yet reached North America.
08/26/2024 - 09:28
Search for more survivors of cave collapse that killed one called off as records show 23 not 25 people were on tour
After a 17-hour, 200-person rescue operation in which first responders used chainsaws and ice picks to cut through a collapsed ice cave to track down two missing tourists, police in Iceland have called off the search and said they now believe that no one had ever been missing.
Officials in Iceland said on Monday that after examining tour operator records, they had concluded that 23 people were on the tour, not 25 as had been previously reported.
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08/26/2024 - 09:00
Data shows people living alone were more likely to die in recent periods of unusually intense heat around the world
The dangers of extreme heat can be amplified by social isolation, experts have warned, with those living alone found to be most likely to suffer.
“Heatwaves are deadly,” Eric Klinenberg, a sociologist at New York University who studies climate disasters, once said. “Cold societies make them far more lethal.”
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08/26/2024 - 07:27
Donation from Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment will be used across country’s more than 400 national park sites
The official non-profit organization of the US national park service is set to receive the largest grant in its history, a $100m gift the fundraising group described as transformative for the country’s national parks.
The National Park Foundation, which Congress created in the 1960s to support national parks, will receive the donation from the Indianapolis-based foundation Lilly Endowment Inc. The park foundation described the gift on Monday as the largest grant in history benefiting US national parks.
This article was amended on 26 August 2024. An earlier version referred to Yellowstone in Montana, but it is mostly in Wyoming.
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08/26/2024 - 07:00
Much of the land near the atomic bomb’s birthplace was converted to recreational areas, but toxic waste remains
Soil, plants and water along popular recreation spots near Los Alamos, New Mexico, the birthplace of the atomic bomb, are contaminated with “extreme concentrations” of plutonium, a new study has found, but calls for the federal government to act have been dismissed.
Michael Ketterer, a Northern Arizona University scientist and lead researcher on the project, said the plutonium levels in and around New Mexico’s Acid Canyon were among the highest he had ever seen in a publicly accessible area in the US during his decades-long career – comparable to what is found in Ukraine at the site of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster.
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08/26/2024 - 06:00
From the merveille du jour to the burnished brass, Britain’s 2,500 species of moths are all special in their own way
Tim Blackburn is professor of invasion biology at UCL and author of The Jewel Box: How Moths Illuminate Nature’s Hidden Rules
Let me start with a confession: I love moths. If your instant reaction to that statement is a shudder and expression of dislike (or worse), be assured that you’re not alone. It is the commonest response I get. But before you scroll on or turn the page, I hope you will give me a couple of minutes of your time to persuade you to change your mind. Moths are extremely important and beautiful creatures, and we should all love them.
Almost all of them, anyway. There’s a couple of tiny species that nibble holes in your jumpers and chew your carpets, and I’m not going to try to make you love those. Feel free to hate them with a vengeance, particularly as autumn draws in and you open your jumper drawer to find unwanted evidence of their labours. But Britain has about 2,500 other species of moths, and it would be unfair to let the clothes moths colour your perceptions of the other 99.9%. And the others really are special, in all sorts of ways.
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08/26/2024 - 01:39
Incident happened as tour group of 25 was visiting Breiðamerkurjökull glacier in south-east of country
At least one person has died and two others are missing after an ice cave partially collapsed as a group of tourists was visiting a glacier in southern Iceland.
In a statement posted on social media, local police said first responders received a call shortly before 3pm on Sunday. They said a group of about 25 foreign tourists from several nationalities were exploring ice caves at the Breiðamerkurjökull glacier when four people were hit by ice.
Two people were seriously injured, one dying from their injuries at the scene of the accident, another taken by helicopter to a hospital in the capital, reportedly in a stable condition.
A large number of rescuers worked throughout the afternoon and into the evening searching for the two missing people. The operation was paused after dark due to the dangerous conditions but was to resume in the morning, police said.
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08/26/2024 - 01:00
Major report released at 4pm on Friday with no media release or a press conference from Tanya Plibersek
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A leading conservation group has accused the government of trying to “bury bad news” about the health of the Great Barrier Reef by releasing a major five-yearly outlook report on Friday afternoon.
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority’s 600-page report said the “window of opportunity to secure a positive future” for the reef was “closing rapidly” and the outlook for the ecosystem was “very poor”.
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